nestle. good food, good life. the injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhuma inhumane. well, not anymore. >> right now on "andrea mitchell reports," stand and deliver. the president is fighting back against health care critics while acknowledging his team's rocky rollout. >> between a reckless shutdown by congressional republicans in order to appeal the affordable care act and admittedly poor execution in implementing the latest stage of the new law. >> circling the globe. secretary of state john kerry and vice president joe biden meeting with allies and adversaries on issues from iran

to afghanistan and china's territorial dispute with japan. before we get down to business in beijing today, the vice president surprised chinese citizens lined up for visas at the u.s. embassy. white-out. a brutal winter storm blanketing the country. snow, ice, and a deep freeze. we'll have a live report from a very snowy denver, colorado. and our favorite fictional anchorman has conquered broadcast news. now he's about to take on "sportscenter." >> you can have south beach, lebron. ronn burgundy is taking his talents to bristol. and good day. i need ron burgundy it fill in for me today.

i'm andrea mitchell, a little under the weather today in washington, where president obama is moving from offense to defense, trying to drive home the benefits of his health care plan despite its faulty rollout. it's a message he's going to be repeating every day between now and his anticipated holiday break. to the delight of nervous house democrats facing re-election next year. joining me now for our daily fix, chris cillizza, and nbc white house correspondent peter alexander. take it away, you guys. let's talk about what the president is trying to do. peter, you first. >> andrea, between your voice, my leaf blower, and what chris has, this could be an interesting next couple minutes. we're going to do our best to get through it. you heard the focus speaking a short time ago. the focus of his remarks less specific to health care than they were to economic opportunities for all americans right now. the white house and this president believes there's a connection between health care security and between economic security as well for americans. a short time from now, about an hour from now, the president is going to be hosting a youth summit event taking place here

at the white house. he's going to make remarks specific to the impact on young americans and the affordable care act. the point that white house aides have repeated before, about 6 in 10 americans who sign up will be able to get health care for less than their monthly cell phone bill. they think that's the type of information that may pry some of those young americans off the sidelines, so to speak, and get involved with this. but this is where the real you are gin is -- urgency is in ter the affordable care act. the number between young people and older sicker americans, that number of young people needs to be roughly 40%, but the president, as we've noted, faces an uphill battle right now. a lot of young americans becoming less confident in this president's ability to do good with this law. >> chris, is this going to work? >> well, let me first thank peter for reminding me i need to

rake my leaves at the house. you know, the president said today -- the law is going to work. he talked about sign-ups increasing. the difficult thing is, as peter pointed out, the whole law is premised on the idea of these young invincibles, as they're called, signing up. there's a poll out of harvard today of millennials, many of whom feel very negatively toward this president and the health care law. you know, perception changes rather quickly in this day and age. i think it's possible that will change. he needs those younger people to sign up in order to make the whole system work. i'm not sure we should expect they would be the first people to sign up, so i don't know that we should be stunned by that. but this effort to try to encourage young people to say, hey, look, this makes sense for you and here's why. it's a critical piece to succeed from a policy perspective.

>> now on the republican side, i wanted to also ask both of you about the cheney family feud. dick cheney finally speaking out. let's watch. >> we're surprised when there was an attack launched against liz on facebook. wished it hadn't happened and do believe we've lived with this situation and dealt with it for many years. it's always been dealt with within the context of the family. frankly, that's our preference. >> that was really very painful for him. the fact is that mary cheney's actually going to go and be speaking at a pro same-sex marriage event in indiana. so she's not backing down. this is, to my knowledge, going to be her first public appearance on this. chris? >> no, she's not, andrea.

i think you're right it is painful for the cheney family. look, i would say i think this is totally understandable. it's quite clear from his comments as well as comments he's made in the recent past that this is not a new dispute between the two sisters. this is something that has been ongoing, they sort of always kept it behind closed doors. now it has obviously broken into public. you know, i think this is a circumstance in which when you decide you are running for the senate, even if you are a member of the cheney family, which gets lots of scrutiny, you are going to come under a different level of scrutiny and interest. i think this is an offchute of that. some of these things that i think the former vice president, my guess is liz and mary cheney, would prefer not to be aired publicly are now out there to be aired publicly. i would just say all of this does not help liz cheney. she needs to build a case for why mike enzi, who's been elected and re-elected in the state, why he should be fired and replaced by her. none of this, which is basically

all we've talked about as it relates to the cheney family in this race for the last couple weeks if not months, none of this goes to building that case. >> and speaking of all the problems that the white house has had and building the case, peter, one of the reasons why democrats are so nervous is they're nervous about losing the senate. and it could turn on mark pryor in arkansas. take a look at his new ad. >> i'm not ashamed to say that i believe in god and i believe in his work. the bible teaches us no one has all the answers, only god does. and neither political party is always right. this is my compass, my north star. it gives me comfort and guidance to do what's best for arkansas. i'm mark pryor, and i approved this message because this is -- >> that's pretty remarkable. one of the most endangered democrats in a red state. actually being targeted by mike

bloomberg's mayors against guns campaign to the distress now of bloomberg's allies in the democratic senate who think they could, if they're going to lose the senate, it could be because pryor goes down. >>, no i don't think there's a biblical verse that says, let's there be silence. but in keeping with the theme of that, we've managed to get some silence. i think obviously the challenge a lot of these senate democrats are facing right now, particularly in those red states, is this unpopularity with obama care and with so many of these other divisive issues that the president may support and may not be popular in their home states. they're the ones republicans are targeting directly right now. as evidenced there, they're going to have to stand up and do whatever they can to finesse their way through the 2014 election. >> my thanks to you, peter and chris chris, for having my back today. >> we're in the bull pen. >> and speaking of health care, the obama administration is trying to highlight the fixes within the enrollment site, but insurance company leaders are

still voicing concerns of whether the right information is ending up with providers. speaking of people who need health care right now, example one. first of all, is the -- are the fixes that we've seen, more enrollments, a better experience for people signing on, is that enough? are you still worried about what's going to happen january 1st when people try to, you know, believe that they have signed up for insurance? is the match going to work? is the insurance industry getting the information they need? >> first off, thank you for having me on. you're raising some very important questions. the administration has made a lot of progress in getting healthcare.gov working better for consumers. so they're able to get through the system and actually choose a plan. that's a good thing. we want to make sure consumers can be able to see their options and get through the system. at the same time, we need to make sure that the back end functions are also working properly so that when someone enrolls and their information is sent to it the health insurer,

that that information is complete, it's accurate, that it's something that the health plan can then process and consumers can be confident they're enrolled and their coverage can begin on january 1st. what we've seen so far is that health plans have -- you know, a lot of those files have included data that's been inaccurate, that's been missing. in some cases those files haven't gotten to the health plans at all. so it's important to make sure we get those issues addressed so that we all avoid a situation in which consumers think they're enrolled and find out after the fact they're not. >> is jeff zeinst and his team, are they addressing that as well as addressing the front-end problems? >> absolutely. our industry and people in our industry have been working closely around the clock with the technical folks at the administration to try to get these issues addressed. progress has been made. we're seeing improvements every single day. but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done so that those files are complete and accurate, that we can get people in the system, that their coverage can begin by january 1st.

>> how do you test that in advance? how do you know whether or not you've reached that goal before january 1st? >> well, that's a great question. we need to make sure not only are health plans getting all the enrollment, so every time somebody is enrolling in a plan, those are showing up to the insurance company. then we need to make sure all the data is complete and accurate so the plan can reach out to the consumer. and the consumer needs to pay their first month's premium before coverage can begin. there's a lot of steps that have to happen after someone clicks enroll through healthcare.gov before their coverage starts. >> how do you set the premiums not knowing what the risk pool is going to look like yet? >> well, health plans have decades of experience in setting premiums, in understanding, you know, consumer behavior and what they're likely to see. there is a lot of uncertainty next year, given some of the technical problems. >> and you give subsidies to offset those issues. >> there are some programs in place, some things called risk

mitigation. they have technical terms, but there are some programs in place to try to help offset some of the uncertainty that exists in the marketplace, given that there is questions about who's still going to be coming into the system. the comments that peter made at the top of the hour are correct. it's not just the total number of people, it's the mix. you've got to make sure the young and healthy are in the system to help offset the cost of those who are older and have very high health care costs coming into the system. and that's what we're going to be looking at. you know, it's a six-month open enrollment period. we can't make judgments about what happens over just the first two months to know what it's going to look like over this entire period. that's why we need to make sure we get these issues addressed as quickly as possible so that people can enroll. we are also working on getting the direct enrollment process up and running where health plans can directly sign people up for coverage. if we can do that, we can unleash health plans to do what they do best. that's get people signed up. this is what our industry does very, very well. it's what they're focused on because they want to make sure people are getting into the system.

>> you saw that harvard poll where younger people are much more skeptical, less interested, not paying as much attention. are you concerned about the mix? because the white house is not giving us those numbers yet. do you have any early indication of what the risk pool looks like? >> you know, we don't. it's really too early to know exactly who's going to come in. as chris mentioned, as we saw in massachusetts, there's -- we see the young people typically kind of wait until the last few minutes before they come into the system. so it's really going to be looking at over the six-month open enrollment period, what's that enrollment picture look like and are we getting those young and healthy people into the system. there's been some data out there about the age of the people, but we won't get a sense of how healthy people are until people start using the health care system, accessing their benefits. it could take, you know, a couple years before we really get a sense of what the risk pool looks like, what the costs are going to be. but it's also why we really need to focus on this issue of affordability. if you're a young person, the factor that's going to determine

the most whether you buy coverage is whether you can afford it. that's why our industry has been so focused on making sure that people have affordable benefit packages. it's why we've raised concerns about a new health insurance tax. it's going to be taxing health insurance because that does the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish of making coverage more affordable and getting people into the system. >> robert, thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you very much. >> and tomorrow an msnbc exclusive. president obama and chris matthews. chris will interview the president for a special edition of the "hardball" college tour from american university. tune in thursday night at 7:00 and 11:00 eastern here on msnbc. and was he asleep at the wheel? william rockefeller, who was at the controllers of the train that crashed in new york sunday, has told police he, quote, zoned out. he indicated to co-workers he may have nodded off before the train sped into a dangerous curve at 82 miles an hour, nearly three times the speed

limit. >> that momentary lapse, he was not able to catch in time. by the time he did and he put the controller -- took the power off and went to emergency, it was too late. >> four people were killed, more than 60 injured. the ntsb has interviewed ro rockefeller twice and says it is still too early to determine whether the cause was human error. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills.

it's not like they didn't do anything this year. in fact, even if the only thing they did all year was this, i say it was a pretty productive year. >> in september congress approved a grant for the minuteman missile national historic site in south dakota to include additional parking space.

the 113th united states congress, bad at creating jobs, good at creating parking spaces at strange historical monuments in the middle of nowhere. >> jimmy kimmel. the state was called out in kimmel's takedown of the 113th congress. tom daschle served as majority and minority leader in the senate and actually got something down. he joins me now from the hill. thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> you can't be happy about the track record of the current congress. >> it is unfortunate. there's a lot of polarization, but in addition to the polarization, you have a new problem. that is that members aren't spending a lot of time in washington. as i understand it, the overlap in december alone between the house and the senate is only four days. and ten days between thanksgiving and january 15th. so you've got to be here. you've got to be able to do the work when you are here, but i

think schedule is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. >> what do you think of the nuclear option and the decision on filibusters? >> andrea, i don't think that senator reid had much choice. when you leave people hanging for years in some cases with their nominations, i think it's just unfair. and it becomes harder and harder to recruit good, quality people. so i think at this point, regardless of who's president, a republican or democrat, i think the time has come. certainly senator reid and the majority recognize that the time has come for us to end the abuse that has now been occurring with regard to nominations in particular. it goes on. we've seen a record number of filibusters and cloture votes over the last several years, but i think the key is finding ways with which to ensure we can move forward and nominations were our good beginning. >> the president has acknowledged problems with the rollout of the health care bill. should he make big changes?

do you think something needs to be done to signal change? >> i think they've seen a lot of change over the last couple of weeks in particular. i think it's been very positive. >> not in personnel. >> well, not in personnel necessarily, but a lot of these people are invested now. they understand the problems. they understand the challenges that we face, to bring in a completely new team where they have to relearn all of this would be a big mistake. there will be time for us to put maybe a more permanent organization, maybe a more structured organization in place. right now i think the whole focus has to be get the job done. let's get this up and running. let's make sure that it's as accessible to people as it can be and it looks like in that context we're making real progress. >> you've been talked about as someone who can come in and straighten it all out. any thoughts on that? >> well, i don't think so. they've got a good team in place now. it's getting better by the day. the last 48 hours have been very

impressive. they're reaching new numbers and new capacity that just a month ago seemed impossible. so that kind of progress is what i want to continue to see. >> let's talk about the senate. the democrats in the senate have some challenges in red states. you've got mary landrieu and mark pryor, kay hagan in north carolina. the republicans only need six wins to take control. how likely do you think it is? >> well, i think every cycle, especially in the last several years, has been very competitive. we've had some lucky breaks, but we also have very good candidates. obviously, we've got more to defend this year than the republicans do, but i look across the country and frankly, i think we're in a lot better position than i would have thought we'd be six or eight months ago. we've got strong campaigns. we've got a number of factors that i think are coming together for us. but we can't take anything for

granted. this is going to be tough. it's going to be competitive. it's going to be costly. but i think at the end of the day, we're going to be fine. >> politico is reporting that scott brown has changed his twitter handle from scottbrown ma to senator scott brown. there's talk he's going to new hampshire to speak at a dinner and he might go after jeanne shaheen. what do you think of that possibility that the former senator of massachusetts is going to run for new hampshire. >> you know, i've seen occasions in the past, and so have you, andrea, where people have moved to states to try to enhance their potential for re-election or election, i should say. i can't recall a time that it's ever worked. i think going back in history, there was only one senator who actually served if not two, maybe even three states, but that's so rare. so he's defying the odds if he attempts to do this and frankly i don't think he's going to be able to pull it off. >> tom daschle, thanks so much. great to see you. thanks for being with us today.

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[ male announcer ] nyquil cold and flu liquid gels don't unstuff your nose. they don't? alka seltzer plus night fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a decongestant. [ inhales deeply ] oh. what a relief it is. vice president biden arrived in beijing today. it's the second leg of his week-long trip to a region rattled by china's declaration that it controls the security zone over the east china sea, also claimed by japan. the vice president spent an unusual amount of time today with president xi jinping, a total of five hours. in tokyo yesterday, biden laid out the u.s. concerns. >> we, the united states, are deeply concerned by the attempt to unilaterally changed status quo in the east china sea. the prospect for miscalculation mistake is too high.

>> traveling with the vice president is steve clemens. i'm joining now by steve from beijing, washington editor at large for "the atlantic." he's been covering the vice president's trip. thank you for getting up in the middle of the night to be with us. appreciate it. this was unusual. a long, long meeting with president xi jinping. we know that they've known each other from when he was the vice premiere and came over here. what do you think came out of it? we know they did discuss the security zone dispute. >> well, according to senior white house officials here, they covered everything under the sun in the u.s.-china relationship, not only bilaterally and these whopper issues like the air defense identification zone, various trade issues, but also global issues like climate change, iran, issues relating to north korea. what you really saw joe biden doing in my view was investing deeply in a very, very key

relationship for the united states and trying to send signals not only to xi jinping here in china but to prime minister abe in japan yesterday and also to president park tomorrow in korea, that these three have benefitted enormously from stability in the asia-pacific region and need to invest more in crisis management to keep the escalations that we've seen going right now from really disrupting a lot of the progress that this region has achieved. >> it's a delicate balance because the u.s., while supporting japan's right to this disputed territory and sending b-52s in, as you well know, the u.s. also warned civilian aircraft to stay out of that zone. japan was not happy about that. and they don't want this more nationalistic new japanese prime minister to get too militaristic here. so how do they support japan without going overboard?

>> well, it's a very fine line, and i think that the way they're trying to sew this together right now is first try to do no more harm. get china not to declare any more of these adizs, any of these zones that need to be done. according to senior officials, the faa gives guidance to all commercial carriers in all cases where defense zones are placing the priority of, you know, those citizens lives at higher risk and these kind of broader geopolitical questions. but from a defense and military perspective, the united states and japan are on the same page, that they won't -- they won't see that zone. they won't act as if that zone exists. so while that may seem incon grewous, the white house believes that it is, and i think that what they've done and what joe biden did with xi jinping is to explain to him how potentially destabilizing this is and have that try and sink in. and at least try to move china

to a position where it responds less aggressively to those aircraft that come in and consider the nature of its response and how quickly this can escalate. as you said, while this may be just a few rocks, five little islands out in the middle of nowhere for many, this has become a really national cause deep, deep, deep in the soul of those that see this as a national priority in japan and also see this as a national priority in china for a resurgent china that's, you know, basically saying we're powerful again, we're back, and we want to be respected and have our sovereignty respected. so there's a clear clash, and right now booiden is trying to t all sides to stand down and be sensible because a conflict would be devastating to all their interests. >> and of course the vietnamese are watching, the philippines are watching because they have their own territorial disputes with china. they did talk about north korea and there have been some changes reported in the regime that kim jong-un has, in fact, ousted his

uncle, who was almost a regent in charge of him in what could be a power struggle and also the case of merrill newman, the american, 85-year-old korean war veteran. do you think from your indications, did he raise that subject? because china is our best tool to get pyongyang to release this man. >> well, i mean, i do think that korea matters a lot. we -- i haven't heard much about the gentleman and how much joe biden advocated on his behalf. regarding kim jong-un's uncle, the consequence for this with china is he was the principle bridge of communication, coordination, and promotion of investment and potentially a china-like model for economic development in north korea. and so to see him demoted and some of his colleagues possibly executed is a matter of great concern here in beijing, which has already begun to take steps in recent months to send signals

to north korea it didn't like the direction it was going. china imported very serious export controls on various technology exports to north korea because of its nuclear program. and we've learned that, you know, one of the things that joe biden and xi jinping discussed is the similarity, the mix of pressure and kind of negotiating incentives that seem to have kind of cracked the ice with iran and whether that same kind of formula might apply to north korea. and it seems that xi jinping leaned into this a bit in a way that jintao never did. >> possibly back channels, secret talks as well. who knows. the chinese would have to help broker that. this is also interesting, steve. really grateful to you for getting up and doing this. i know it's been a very long day, the trip from tokyo to beijing. thanks so much. >> just trying to do it the way you do, andrea. >> well, that is high praise.

thank you very much. and winter here has not officially begun yet, but it sure looks like it. a monster storm across the united states impacting tens of millions of people. joining me from a snowy denver, colorado, nbc's leann greg. beautiful sight, but it's not that easy to get around. there were other impacts, including on the crops in california, the orange groves. what is the trajectory now of the storm? >> that's right, andrea. well, right now it is 8 degrees here in denver. those temperatures will plummet to subzero later this afternoon. the snow is continuing to fall. that's expected to diminish, but the temperatures won't get out of the teens until later this weekend. to the west of us in the mountains, it is a snow event, possibly up to two feet of snow, but really the story is about the frigid cold temperatures. dangerously cold. yesterday it was close to 50

degrees warmer in the denver metro area. it's been a huge jolt any time you get to subzero temperatures, but especially now. yes, the impact is being felt across the region. more than 30 million people affected in 25 different states from coast to coast. you mentioned the citrus growers concerned about what this cold snap will do to the crops. many still on the vine. as far as transportation, you know the implications of the icy conditions, the roads. at least four people have been killed in the duluth, minnesota, area right now where they had more than 20 inches of snow yesterday. they could get another foot today. this system is moving to the east and to the south and it's not over yet. it will be with us for quite some time. andrea? >> leann greg out in single-digit, freezing weather. thanks so much for being with us today. appreciate it. and up next, democratic national committee chair debbie wasserman shults. stay with us. [ female announcer ] it balances you...

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a new poll out today shows that most millennials are concerned about the impact of the affordable care act. this comes as the president plans to deliver remarks this afternoon at a white house youth summit. he's going to be encouraging young americans to enroll in health insurance plans. they're critical cohort. joining me now, congresswoman and democratic national committee chair debbie wasserman-schultz. congresswoman, what about this poll? it shows that, first of all, among the millennials, many of them think that it will be more expensive. only 13% say they will definitely enroll. 16% will probably. 41% are split. they're also concerned about costs. we see in this poll that 40% think the care will be worse. 37% think care will be the same. 18% think it will be better. don't we have to -- doesn't the white house have to get more support from these young people in order to make the risk pool

work effectively? >> well, over the next weeks and months, the white house as well as democratic members of congress and folks across the administration are going to be continuing to get the word out about the opportunity to sign up for coverage, the benefits of signing up for coverage. you know, for millennials, young adults in particular, because they have an opportunity to stay on their parents' insurance until they're 26 years old, many of them need to be aware they can do that. that's going to give them comprehensive coverage that so many of them don't have now. and the focus needs to be on making sure that we can get young people who are often healthier into the pool so that it lowers the overall cost of health insurance. whether it's making sure they get access to preventive care like mammograms without a co-pay or deductible or make -- or a well-woman visit without a co-pay or deductible or birth control for free so they can plan their families in the way they want to.

that's why i think gradually you'll have millennials fully embraced affordable care act, and it's going to be really an incredible opportunity. >> and one of the things that people are really frustrated about and the president addressed today already is the lack of accomplishment in washington. only 60 bills passed by congress since last january. tom daschle was on the show just a few minutes ago talking about four or five days where both house and senate are in session, only ten days by january 15th. it's really an asnoutounding la of accomplishment. one of the things that's not gotten done, as you know very well, any new gun laws. there's a new public service announcement i want to share with you and our audience. this comes from the moms demanding action for gun sense in america and the mayors against illegal guns, and it focuses on newtown. let's watch. >> on december 14th, we'll have

a moment of silence for newtown, but with 26 more school shootings since that day, ask yourself, is silence what america needs right now? >> it's pretty powerful stuff. i interviewed nicole hockley yesterday, whose son was among the victims. she's here in washington trying to persuade people to take this up. what can you say to her? >> what i say to her is that we need to make sure that the republican leadership in congress is hearing moms across the country like her. the millions of people, the majority of the american people who believe that they support the second amendment and at the same time believe that when you purchase a weapon in this

country, you should be required to submit yourself to a back ground check. that is basic common sense. it isn't intrusive. mark kelly, my friend, gabby giffords' husband, has shown repeatedly in the last few months how simple it is to go get a background check and purchase a firearm. that kind of protection to ensure the people who should not have a weapon in this country because they're either felons or adjudicated as mentally ill cannot get access to it would be a big step towards preventing so many of these mass shootings where we found that these were people that should never have had a gun in the first place. >> briefly, you're the head of the party. the gun lobby has been so successful because they're single-issue lobbyists. what do you say to democrats who want to give an exemption, a pass to red-state senators like mark pryor who's, you know, up for re-election and won't support gun laws because of the

harkens of others. should he get a pass on guns? >> well, what i say to the leadership of the house of representatives is that we need to do -- in order to pass legislation, we need to get rid of the rule, allow legislation to come to the floor that will be earning support of the entire house of representatives. heck, andrea, we need legislation to come to the floor, period, to give it an opportunity to have a vote like comprehensive immigration reform, which has passed the senate and would pass the house if the speaker would allow that bill to come to the floor. or the employment nondiscrimination act that would prohibit gays and lesbians from being discriminated against in hiring and in housing. it's absolutely essential that we let the house and the process, the democratic process work instead of the republican leadership, which only allows legislation to come to the floor if they have a majority of the majority. that's not what the founding fathers envisioned. it's why we are the do nothingist of do nothing

congre congresses. the ball lies in the court of john boehner and allowing a tea party strangle hold to control the agenda. it's leaving so many people like immigrants and moms who are concerned about their children not being killed by guns twisting in the wind. >> debbie wasserman schultz, thanks very much. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back.

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you know, ronny... folks who save hundreds of dollars by switching to geico sure are happy. and how happy are they jimmy? i'd say happier than a bodybuilder directing traffic. he does look happy. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. a major new motion picture is bringing attention to military veterans. "lone survivor" is based on the real-life mission of s.e.a.l. team ten to capture and kill a taliban leader. when the team was ambushed by the enemy, they were forced to change their plan and stay and fight. >> they are unarmed prisoners. >> this is not a vote. this is what we're going to do. this op is compromised. we're going to cut them loose and we're going to make this peak.

when we make this peak, you're going to get coms up. we're going to call for extract and we're going home. >> roger that, sir. >> roger that. >> roger. >> in honor of this film, the director has teamed up with army veteran chris marvin to start lone survivor fund. it's a unique program to distribute funds to three military charities. chris marvin is head of got your six. thanks so much. tell me about this partnership. it's a unique partnership. you've got a hollywood film, and it's raising money for military charities. what are you planning to do with the money? >> well, we're really proud to be working with lone survivor. pete berg has really created a masterpiece and something that all post-9/11 veterans should be very proud of. something that shows what we've done in the last ten or more years in afghanistan. the film is really compelling. it's really poignant. we know that when people leave the theater, they're going to want to do something. they're going to want to act. so what we were able to do with

nbc universal and with film 44, pete berg's company, was create the lone survivor fund. this fund is something that anybody who sees the film can learn about the nonprofits we're supporting, donate to the fund and the funds will be split between got your six, the navy s.e.a.l. foundation and lone survivor foundation. >> you're a former blackhawk pilot from afghanistan. we thank you for your service. this comes at a critical time and tells the story of these real heroes from afghanistan. how accurate is the portrayal for you and your fellow vets of what you endured in afghanistan? >> i was in afghanistan a little less than a year before this happened. and i was wounded in a helicopter crash not far from where this exact incident happened. i was very impressed. every time i've seen it i'm more and more impressed with the accuracy of the portrayal of modern combat. i think it's important. it's important for people to see

this. people want to support our veterans and troops but a lot of times we don't get information on what it was like over there. and while this movie might seem a bit graphic, it's real. it's realistic and i really feel that americans need to see this. they need to know this story and stories like this so they can better understand the service of those in the military and what veterans had to offer when they come home. >> and in fact, this is a way when people go to the movie and the revenue from the movie is supporting, i've got your six and other charities, it's making a real contribution while being entertained and informed? >> absolutely. and pete berg has been a leader in hollywood, someone who is hiring veterans to work in front of and behind the camera. there's navy s.e.a.l.s playing

roles on this and worked onset for this film and other films. it's important to understand that veterans come home from iraq and afghanistan or other military service and when they reenter our community, they are truly leaders and civic assets and this is the ride medium to share the message. >> we thank you for everything you endured and your service and what you're doing now. thanks for being with us today. we'll be right back. [ paper rustles, outdoor sounds ] ♪ [ male announcer ] laura's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today her doctor has her on a bayer aspirin regimen

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this sad note four days after this fiery crash killed actor paul walker, the police coroner's report has confirmed the death was an accident. actor, known best for roles in "fast and furious" franchise, died from a combination of traumatic injuries and burns. universal studios, which is part of nbc universal, the production company behind the fast and furious movies just announced they are shutting down production for now on the seventh movie of the series out of respect for walker's family and the film's cast and crew,

which is of course, grieving. that does it for us for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. tomorrow on the show, judy gross, alan gross, the government contractor still imprisoned in cuba for four years. >> coming up, despite a fight from sandy hook parents and newtown community, 911 recordings from the morning adam lanza gunned down 20 first graders and six adults are said to be released any minute now. we'll discuss this decision. plus, a controversial abortion bill in michigan pitting the republican legislature against the governor. it would ban insurers from covering a procedure even in the case of rape or incest or mother's health. fraternity under fire, a maryland university takes action against a student's claim that he tried to join a fraternity but was rejected for being gay. we'll have the details on these allegations next on "news

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the "news nation" is following developing news at this hour. authorities are in the process of releasing 911 calls made the day adam lanza went on a shooting rampage. this follows a lengthy court battle, most of the victims families believe the calls should not be made public but a judge agreed they should be released. more on the battle that led us to this moment from rehema ellis. >> the school is in lockdown. >> see if the surrounding towns can send out personnel. >> reporter: emergency calls responding to call a sandy hook. these are the only recordings that most people have heard. today nearly a year